Michael Gersen, the man who coined the phrase “Axis of Evil”, had an op-ed defending religion in the Washington Post. There is the nice irony that if his beliefs are correct, the consequences of his wicked act will be worse for him than if death really is the end. But let’s lead that aside. What he does believe is that religion is good for other people, and for society:
The death of God has greater consequences than expanded golf time on Sunday mornings. And it is not simply religious fundamentalists who have recognized it. America’s Founders embraced public neutrality on matters of religion, but they were not indifferent to the existence of religious faith. George Washington warned against the “supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.” The Founders generally believed that the virtues necessary for self-government — self-sacrifice, honesty, public spirit — were strengthened by religious beliefs and institutions.
I know perfectly well that he is not asserting that the founders themselves were orthodox Christians. This is clever of him. But the point that we ought to respect certain pieties is a sensible one. All religions are equally true to the populace, false to the philosopher, and useful to the magistrate — and we need to remember that there are damn few philosophers and magistrates. This is the point that Hitchens elaborately misses. He asks
Let Gerson name one ethical statement made, or one ethical action performed, by a believer that could not have been uttered or done by a nonbeliever. And here is my second challenge. Can any reader of this column think of a wicked statement made, or an evil action performed, precisely because of religious faith? The second question is easy to answer, is it not? The first — I have been asking it for some time — awaits a convincing reply. By what right, then, do the faithful assume this irritating mantle of righteousness? They have as much to apologize for as to explain.
The argument here is a statistical one. There will always be atheists, agnostics, and so on who behave at least as well as Christians. Some will do so out of a completely admirable, unillusioned altruism, just as some religious believers do. Many more will do so — just like most religious believers — through a mechanism of psychological reward that seems to me at least as implausible as a belief in heaven: I’m old enough to remember when progress seemed as real as paradise.
In both cases, though, it seems obvious that more people behave well because they believe they will be rewarded for it, or at least not too severely punished than do so in a completely disinterested fashion. Since that is the case,and since we all have an interest in living in a society where people do on the whole behave well to one another, then surely Washington and Jefferson were right to suppose religious belief was useful to society. A country where only naturally good people behave well is not going to be pleasant or even prosperous. Arguments about outliers, like those that Hitchens makes, simply miss the point.
The idea that people should only believe what is true seems to me stupid, cruel and unnatural.
Ironic that the line about religion promoting good behavior was only adopted as its chief selling point after Hume et. al. were thought to have discredited metaphysics–and that now this line feeds into one of the chief pop arguments against religious belief and practice.
Religion stands or falls by metaphysics and mysticism: it’s only legitimate purpose is contact with the supernatural. If purveyors of religious products don’t believe there’s a supernatural to contact they should close up shop and get honest jobs. Instead, they’ve tried to justify their employment and keep their churches going by pretending that they have some other worthwhile purpose–promoting good behavior, administering charities, providing “meaning” and “community-building” or whatever. Now increasingly people recognize that they do a lousy job at these tasks, and that secular alternatives are cheaper and better–so who’s surprised that churches are collapsing in affluent countries where these alternatives are available?
It’s perfectly consistent to be a religious believer while holding that religious belief does nothing whatsoever by way of encouraging good behavior and is of no social value.
Religion stands or falls by metaphysics or mysticism — aren’t you overlooking the placebo effect here?
Seriously. If we take it as axiomatic, or even established, that there is no reliable knowledge available to third parties about mystical things then it is also consistent to hold that religious practice is worth encouraging even if the beliefs make no sense.
This issue isn’t whether the metaphysical claims are true or whether mystical experiences are veridical. It’s whether the metaphysical claims are philosophically interesting. The irony is that most contemporary theologians don’t find these metaphysical issues interesting–so e.g. if you’re interested in the Trinity puzzle you read the Fathers and Aquinas. Professional theologians are doing armchair sociology and dabbling in Continental “philosophy” and the priests are interested in “inclusiveness,” hand-patting, and “community-building.”
As for mystical experience, the issue isn’t whether it’s veridical or not, or whether it’s a source of knowledge–of course it isn’t–but the buzz itself. As an undergraduate I experimented extensively with various methods for achieving the buzz–most effectively: (1) Christmas midnight mass at a church doing Mozart’s Coronation Mass with a very good string ensemble while stoned and (2) reading George Herbert on the quad while tripping on acid. Right now I’m listening to the Orthodox Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts sung by the choir of St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary while drinking warm sake, and it’s pretty good.
I suppose it’s some anomaly in my temporal lobe. Most people don’t seem to get off on this, or even understand what I’m talking about. But some do and the Church over the past 30 years has chucked everything we need to get that buzz. If the Church isn’t in the business of metaphysics and mysticism it has nothing to offer. With technology, when people don’t need to appeal to supernatural agencies to cure disease or make their corn grow, they drop out. When shrinks, secular gurus and commercial self-help literature are available they don’t need, or want, religious wisdom literature or preaching. And I repeat there’s no empirical evidence to suggest that religion promotes good behavior, much as you might want to niggle about “those counterfactuals.” We mystics are the Church’s only serious clients and the Church has betrayed us!
Well f*** it. I’m going to finish my drink, go to bed and get back to the history of the Byzantine empire I’m reading–on tradesmen arguing about theological niceties in the streets of Alexandria and Antioch and the Empress Zoe talking to her icons. That’s my fantasy.